Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and welcome to Okay f Daily with
Speaker 1: Meet Your Girl Danielle Moody, recording live from our Podstream
Speaker 1: studios in Times Square. A pandemic, a war mask mandates
Speaker 1: suing of schools, out of control fires, hurricanes. That's just
Speaker 1: the top headlines of where America is and it is
Speaker 1: only what fucking Wednesday. Funny enough, I was watching the
Speaker 1: news and an anchor said this. If you are watching
Speaker 1: this right now and you feel riddled with anxiety, you
Speaker 1: feel depressed or frustrated, You're not alone. I don't think
Speaker 1: that I've ever seen or heard an anchor say that
Speaker 1: before on the news, which is the recognition that every
Speaker 1: single segment, every single story that they are covering as
Speaker 1: their job to enlighten the American people provide information on
Speaker 1: where we are and where we are headed. Is becoming
Speaker 1: so desperately troubling because you don't know where things are going,
Speaker 1: and you don't really know how to provide calm and
Speaker 1: assurance to people, let alone yourself. The reality is is
Speaker 1: that every day that you've been waking up in this
Speaker 1: country for the past several years, we are beginning to
Speaker 1: understand what it is like to live in an oppressive state.
Speaker 1: What it is like to live in a country whose
Speaker 1: leaders you can't trust, who don't have your best interests
Speaker 1: at heart. And I remember, you know, traveling around before COVID,
Speaker 1: when we were able to travel and feel good about traveling,
Speaker 1: you know, going into these countries where their governments were
Speaker 1: kind of in shambles, but the country was beautiful and
Speaker 1: the people seem nice, but they don't really have any
Speaker 1: opportunities and there wasn't a whole lot going on. I
Speaker 1: now understand, or am understanding, how it feels to wake
Speaker 1: up every day and wonder when the other shoe is
Speaker 1: going to drop. Now, look, Donald Trump is no longer
Speaker 1: the president of the United States, God bless elections. But
Speaker 1: what do we know. We know that since then ten
Speaker 1: months ago, when the decision was made by the American
Speaker 1: people to boot out an authoritarian fascist wanna be who
Speaker 1: delighted with the journalists about having intel about COVID nineteen
Speaker 1: but not offering that to the American people. No, No,
Speaker 1: instead offering up snake oil and lies and bullshit right
Speaker 1: as a means to hold power. We're not in that
Speaker 1: place anymore. But since then, over three hundred voter suppression
Speaker 1: bills have been rolled out. There's no federal legislation that
Speaker 1: has been agreed upon. The House voted and passed the
Speaker 1: John Lewis Voting Rights Act along party lines. Not one
Speaker 1: fucking Republican, not that Adam Kinzinger, not the Liz Cheney,
Speaker 1: not one of them in the House of Representatives, who
Speaker 1: we say, are you know, normal? Decided to vote on
Speaker 1: the side of their former colleague that died right, that died,
Speaker 1: that spent his entire life, John Lewis, spent his entire
Speaker 1: life fighting for people's right to vote. Your colleague that
Speaker 1: you worked alongside of some for decades upon decades, you
Speaker 1: decided to vote against a piece of legislation that bears
Speaker 1: his goddamn name. Again, I will say this, like I
Speaker 1: say every couple of days, when people show you who
Speaker 1: they are, believe them. Stop trying to return and Republicans
Speaker 1: to this mystical pastime when they cared about the American people,
Speaker 1: when they wanted what was best for the country, when
Speaker 1: we put politics, you know, aside, and did what was right,
Speaker 1: when we were agreed to collaborate. Right, No, we're not there,
Speaker 1: and I don't think folks, that we will ever go
Speaker 1: back there. Ever, Again, not when you have a party
Speaker 1: that is so hell bent on ensuring that a health
Speaker 1: pandemic that has killed over six hundred thousand Americans continues.
Speaker 1: You know, there are so many court cases right now
Speaker 1: that are proceeding around the country right school districts suing governors,
Speaker 1: governors suing school districts, companies, nonprofits suing the Biden administration
Speaker 1: so that they can discriminate a against whoever they want
Speaker 1: to discriminate against. I mean, we are in hell right.
Speaker 1: Some folks say that it's purgatory. I don't know. I
Speaker 1: know that it ain't fucking good, is what I will say, right.
Speaker 1: I know that it's not good when people are looking
Speaker 1: for the ability to harm as many people as possible.
Speaker 1: Adam Sewar wrote a book called Cruelty is the point, right,
Speaker 1: and that is obvious right now. But my question is
Speaker 1: why aren't Democrats being so clear to the American people
Speaker 1: about what Republicans are doing. Don't talk to me about
Speaker 1: the ways in which you're going to roll out this
Speaker 1: vaccination program and that vaccination program, and you're going to
Speaker 1: try and win over Americans. We're not there anymore. You're
Speaker 1: not changing hearts and minds in the ways that we
Speaker 1: thought that we could ten and fifteen years ago. We
Speaker 1: are in tribal cult territory right now, right where people
Speaker 1: are doubling down on their evil. They are doubling down
Speaker 1: on the threats that they are making. You know, in
Speaker 1: my conversation that you'll hear later with our friend doctor
Speaker 1: Jonathan metzol And if Jonathan, what I even noticed in
Speaker 1: this conversation had a different tone than he's had in
Speaker 1: the past. We've tried to find ways to you know,
Speaker 1: find levity right, you know, laugh so that you don't cry. Well,
Speaker 1: Jonathan right now is faced with an impossible situation where
Speaker 1: he is back on his college's campus that has no
Speaker 1: mask mandate rule, back in a state in the South
Speaker 1: that does not have any vaccination mandates or mask mandates
Speaker 1: or anything. Half the population, he says, is terrified and
Speaker 1: the other half is fine with being bullies and using
Speaker 1: right their desire to not wear a mask as a
Speaker 1: threat and intimidation. Where have we seen that before, folks,
Speaker 1: Where you see these white aggressive folks wanting to double
Speaker 1: down right on their terrorism as a way to show
Speaker 1: their power. You see, what we now know is that
Speaker 1: it's not enough to just you know, hold up Donald
Speaker 1: Trump as you as your savior, right and your fucking God.
Speaker 1: It's not enough to just be maga. We're gonna make
Speaker 1: America great again by making everybody else miserable. It's not
Speaker 1: enough to just own the Libs. No, now we are
Speaker 1: moving to a place where we want you dead and
Speaker 1: we want you to know who did it right that
Speaker 1: we are in a place I never in my wildest
Speaker 1: fucking nightmares would I have thought that America, that Republicans
Speaker 1: would have moved into a pro death stance, right, that
Speaker 1: their desire to win at any cost would literally be
Speaker 1: costing thousands of Americans their lives every single month. Right now,
Speaker 1: Texas and Florida or the epicenter for COVID nineteen, we're
Speaker 1: talking about seeing numbers, folks, that we have not seen
Speaker 1: since twenty twenty. And we saw those numbers in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty with COVID nineteen and positive infection rates. Why because
Speaker 1: we didn't have a fucking vaccine. We have one now,
Speaker 1: And so you would think that after living through so
Speaker 1: much loss, so much grief, and so much trauma, that
Speaker 1: Americans would be united around this vaccine as a way
Speaker 1: to get back to life as quote unquote normal. But
Speaker 1: you see the snake salesman, the snake oil salesman, the
Speaker 1: used car salesman, all of these people, they got them.
Speaker 1: They got a hold on them. They got a hold
Speaker 1: on them in such a major way that they would
Speaker 1: rather take a horse d Wurmer right then they would
Speaker 1: take a vaccine, folks. Coming up next is my conversation
Speaker 1: with our friend doctor Jonathan Metzel, which is one that
Speaker 1: you want to listen to because what is happening and
Speaker 1: what Jonathan is experiencing on the ground in Tennessee is
Speaker 1: just an example of what is transpiring around the country. Folks.
Speaker 1: You know that I'm always so grateful when our in
Speaker 1: house doctor, doctor Jonathan Metzel, author of Dying of Whiteness,
Speaker 1: which apparently we are going to die of, joins woke
Speaker 1: f every single week. Jonathan, you are now joining us
Speaker 1: from Tennessee because you are back to school, like millions
Speaker 1: of other people will be following the Labor Day holiday.
Speaker 1: Tell us how things are going in Tennessee. What are
Speaker 1: you seeing, how are you feeling? Give us the rundown.
Speaker 1: It's pretty tense here. I have to say. I'm from
Speaker 1: my office at Vanderbilt. I'm about to go after we
Speaker 1: speak into a lecture of one hundred and fifty students
Speaker 1: in a lecture hall. I'm doing this on a day
Speaker 1: where I've had multiple student emails this morning of students
Speaker 1: testing positive. I've got some colleagues who are testing positive.
Speaker 1: And we're in a micro environment where pretty much everybody
Speaker 1: is back and people are for the most playing by
Speaker 1: the rules. But it's just honestly very hard to contain
Speaker 1: this thing, and especially given that the infrastructure has not
Speaker 1: been updated. So it's not like there's new air ventilation,
Speaker 1: there's new places to walk wide and sidewalks and all
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff, And so Vanderbilt is a it's
Speaker 1: the particular microcosm right now of the difficulties that we're
Speaker 1: seeing at other schools. Duke has had an outbreak. Other
Speaker 1: schools about outbreaks, and the question will be what you know,
Speaker 1: what do you think? What do you do about it? Right?
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm a little, to be honest, I'm a
Speaker 1: little nervous about class today. I've got three and ninety
Speaker 1: five's sitting here in front of me. I have to
Speaker 1: decide which one or heck, maybe I'll wear them all
Speaker 1: and so it's it's a tense moment. And the tense
Speaker 1: moment isn't just because of Vanderbilt. It's all so because
Speaker 1: we're in this bigger context here of just out of
Speaker 1: controlness around. And so I mean again, as you know,
Speaker 1: I've been in New York this entire time and now
Speaker 1: coming back to Tennessee, it's not just that you feel
Speaker 1: the COVID in the air. I mean, I'm sure that's
Speaker 1: in my mind, but it's more just to be in
Speaker 1: a place where, like, on the average, I mean, half
Speaker 1: the people are scared out of their minds and the
Speaker 1: other half of the people are like doing everything they
Speaker 1: can to like and be intimidating. So I was on
Speaker 1: a flight the other day and one of the people
Speaker 1: next to me brought a huge bag of Doritos and
Speaker 1: they would eat a dorito every like five minutes so
Speaker 1: that they could keep their mask off. And every time
Speaker 1: that flight a tenant would come by and say put
Speaker 1: your mask on, the person was saying like, well, no,
Speaker 1: I'm eating and here's my bag of Doritos and stuff
Speaker 1: like that. And so in a way, people are just
Speaker 1: doing everything they can, like being creative, putting thought energy
Speaker 1: into how they can best spread the spread the coronavirus.
Speaker 1: And so you know, again like and when it's your
Speaker 1: day to day life, it's it's a little bit different.
Speaker 1: I mean, half the people again are scared out of
Speaker 1: their minds and the other half the people are It's funny,
Speaker 1: like this is kind of a tandem. But it reminds
Speaker 1: me of the gun issue that I've been studying for
Speaker 1: so long, which is like when people walk around with
Speaker 1: a gun, it's intimidating, it scares other people, and there
Speaker 1: there's a kind of power in that. You know, oh,
Speaker 1: I could do anything, you know, that kind of stuff,
Speaker 1: And the mask feels the same kind of thing. The
Speaker 1: power of it is is in the threat, it's in
Speaker 1: the intimidation, and so you know, you're kind of you're
Speaker 1: kind of surrounded by by all that stuff right now
Speaker 1: here in the South. You know. I think that that's
Speaker 1: a really important point that you bring up that I
Speaker 1: haven't been thinking about, which is in the power and intimidation,
Speaker 1: and that essentially when you go back, you know in history,
Speaker 1: what was the point of the kkks, what was the
Speaker 1: point of lynching? What was a point of all of
Speaker 1: those things, which is to have the ability to terrorize
Speaker 1: the black community, to terrorize a community of people. And
Speaker 1: in this instance, we're talking about these anti matter which
Speaker 1: I'm not even going to call them anti masks anymore.
Speaker 1: These this pro death cult that is really interested and
Speaker 1: has this deep desire to spread fear. Right, I have
Speaker 1: the power to kill you and to kill those around you,
Speaker 1: or to make you severely ill. And you know when
Speaker 1: you say that half of the people that you see
Speaker 1: are scared out of their minds, are those people in
Speaker 1: your assumption they have been vaccinated, but they just feel
Speaker 1: that the threat in the environment that they are living
Speaker 1: in in Tennessee is just so great that they don't
Speaker 1: feel like that is effective. I think about this in
Speaker 1: terms of public health and the engagement with community public health.
Speaker 1: Certainly in New York. It's not like everybody's everybody's played
Speaker 1: by the rules. But for the most part, it's kind
Speaker 1: of like driving, like you know people are going to
Speaker 1: stop at the red light, you know people are going
Speaker 1: to go on the green light. You know that they're
Speaker 1: going to stay in their lane for the most part,
Speaker 1: and that lets everybody drive safely down the road. And
Speaker 1: here it's like it's just the biggest car goes down
Speaker 1: the middle of the road and everybody else has to
Speaker 1: get out of the right like it. So in a way,
Speaker 1: you just you don't feel like your structure. And I
Speaker 1: think about this a lot, right, because you know, on
Speaker 1: one end people probably say, oh, that's freedom and liberty stuff.
Speaker 1: It's more anxiety here. I mean, people turn on the news,
Speaker 1: they see what's happening with COVID. All the hospitals are full,
Speaker 1: all the icy user full, and so I'd rather be
Speaker 1: part of a collaborative effort where people are banding together. Personally,
Speaker 1: I'd rather be taking medications that at least have been
Speaker 1: approved by the FDA or tested in some kind of
Speaker 1: modicum way. But I mean it's not like people are crazy.
Speaker 1: I would just say, as somebody who studies this, there's
Speaker 1: a bigger ideology, right, which is that not playing by
Speaker 1: the rules reinforces existing power structures, right, And so the
Speaker 1: scary part here is there are so many people here
Speaker 1: who see their power or as contingent on not cooperating.
Speaker 1: And that's really when it's the most scary, which is
Speaker 1: not always. I mean, you know, when I'm at work,
Speaker 1: I'm okay and stuff like that, But in general, when
Speaker 1: people feel like they're not, you know, I'm going to
Speaker 1: do what I want. Well, that's great if you're in
Speaker 1: a vacuum, but if you're you know, in a communal
Speaker 1: situation like a community infection and stuff like that with COVID,
Speaker 1: then really, you know, it's just it's it's just it's
Speaker 1: it's it's an intimidating moment. I would say that, and
Speaker 1: I think that's the point I was reading recently in
Speaker 1: the article in the New York Times this week by
Speaker 1: Jamal Bowie, who basically the article is do Republicans want
Speaker 1: COVID nineteen to end? Right? Is this something that they
Speaker 1: want to end? And the premise of the article is no, right,
Speaker 1: And he takes us back to the beginning of Obama's
Speaker 1: presidency where Obama was signaling that he wanted to end
Speaker 1: the great political divide, to bring people together to be
Speaker 1: the great uniter, and he needed Republican support in order
Speaker 1: to do so. Republicans refused, right because and then we
Speaker 1: saw what happened during the midterm elections is that their refusal,
Speaker 1: their obstructionism, worked in their favor because he lost the Senate,
Speaker 1: lost the House. Right, and this same setup is happening
Speaker 1: right now with Biden, except that it is not just about, Oh,
Speaker 1: I want to own Obama. I don't want Democrats to
Speaker 1: move forward their agenda. The agenda here is about keeping
Speaker 1: Americans safe. The agenda is making sure that Americans don't
Speaker 1: die in mass and Republicans instead are doubling down. And
Speaker 1: you know when I look at the numbers right now,
Speaker 1: and you see that Florida is averaging twenty thousand new
Speaker 1: infections a day, two hundred and sixty two deaths a day,
Speaker 1: more than sixteen thousand people are hospitalized with COVID. In Texas,
Speaker 1: twenty three thousand new cases of COVID a day, fourteen
Speaker 1: thousand or hospitalized, two hundred and forty five deaths. And
Speaker 1: my thing, Jonathan, is that we have no change. Democrats
Speaker 1: are making no change, a radical shift in their messaging,
Speaker 1: which is that instead of us just being pro vaccine,
Speaker 1: pro vaccine, we actually need to be stating very clearly
Speaker 1: to the American people what Republicans are doing right like,
Speaker 1: what they are doing like it is not enough. I
Speaker 1: don't think for Democrats to go around and say, we
Speaker 1: just need to get more Americans vaccinated and we need
Speaker 1: to end this stalemate. We need to talk about their
Speaker 1: pro death agenda is to sacrifice as many Americans as
Speaker 1: possible so they win back power. How do you think
Speaker 1: that we shift this messaging because you understand the psychology
Speaker 1: and the ideology and the right wing extremism that we're
Speaker 1: working against right now. But I'm talking about I'm not
Speaker 1: ever in the camp of trying to win these people over.
Speaker 1: I think that if you're taking horse d warmer, you
Speaker 1: are not operating in the same planet that the rest
Speaker 1: of us are on. So I'm not about those people,
Speaker 1: but I am about the people who are terrified, who
Speaker 1: are trying to keep themselves in their families safe, and
Speaker 1: riling those people up. It's a terrifying moment. It's a
Speaker 1: dangerous moment. I mean, let's just be honest. Biden is
Speaker 1: considerably weakend right now because of Afghanistan. Because what he
Speaker 1: was banking his presidency on, which was vaccines, revving up
Speaker 1: the economy and everybody going back, didn't turn out to
Speaker 1: be because of the Delta variant, which is it's just
Speaker 1: a game changer. As we've said on the show a million,
Speaker 1: it's an entirely different pathogen. It's a different virus, in
Speaker 1: a particular way, and so and so it puts the
Speaker 1: Democrats in a particularly vulnerable position. And I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: no strategist, but I would say two things, having worked
Speaker 1: on the last election. One is honestly a bit of frustration,
Speaker 1: a little bit honestly, because the Democrats learned how to
Speaker 1: win the election. The Democrats won the election, and they
Speaker 1: did so in a pretty strategic way, right. They created
Speaker 1: a big base, they were great about messaging. They had
Speaker 1: like it or not ally that learned how to like
Speaker 1: stick it to the other side. But it wasn't so
Speaker 1: much the exact issue. It was about getting out in
Speaker 1: front of the issue and making the other side respond
Speaker 1: to the message that it's your message. And the minute
Speaker 1: the Democrats won the election, they stopped doing all that stuff.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like, oh, we won the election. Now
Speaker 1: people are going to come back to our senses. And so,
Speaker 1: whether or not you agree with the Lincoln Project, I
Speaker 1: realize a lot of people didn't. The methods that groups
Speaker 1: like that were using was basically, here's how you crapp
Speaker 1: the narrative and make the other side respond to you.
Speaker 1: And the Democrats forgot how to do that. Right, all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, they're on their heels. Everything is a response.
Speaker 1: Everything is playing defense all the time, which is what's
Speaker 1: gotten Democrats in trouble all the time. And so again
Speaker 1: message aside like rehire the Lincoln Project and people who
Speaker 1: do and do that and make it coherent and go
Speaker 1: on the offensive because every single thing that ever I
Speaker 1: was playing defense against everything. That is it for Today's
Speaker 1: Woke a f daily podcast. To hear more from today's show,
Speaker 1: including my full interview with doctor Jonathan Mexel. Support me
Speaker 1: on Patreon at patreon dot com. Slash woke AF Power
Speaker 1: to the people and to all the people power, get
Speaker 1: woke and stay woke as fuck.